The second series of The Forsyte Saga, based on John Galsworthy's To Let, moves the story of the sprawling, fractious and aristocratic Forsyte family into the 1920s. The drama shifts to a new generation shouldering the burdensome legacies of an aging Soames (Damian Lewis) and his failed marriage to free-spirited Irene (Gina McKee). The lovely Fleur (Emma Griffiths Malin), Soames' daughter by second wife Annette (Beatriz Batarda), and strapping Jon (Lee Williams), son of Irene and Soames' bohemian cousin, Jolyon (Rupert Graves), develop a romance much to the dismay of their feuding parents. But the long reach of the elder Forsytes' sins--and the tenderness with which they seek redemption through their children--ultimately undercuts the young lovers' happiness.

Meanwhile, sundry characters move in and out of the Forsytes' orbit, including a French businessman (Michael Maloney) stirring more troubles for Soames, and an art dealer (Oliver Milburn) with designs on Fleur. As with Series 1, all this will feel familiar to anyone who has seen the 26-part, 1967 version; yet this updated effort renews and redefines the Forsytes' overlapping tragedies, with a more interior feel and a first-rate contemporary cast. As with its legendary predecessor, this Forsyte Saga depends heavily on the seemingly soulless Soames' slow evolution to humanity; Damian Lewis carries the load brilliantly. --Tom Keogh

The story of Fortress takes place in drastically overpopulated America of the year 2017, where each woman is allowed only one pregnancy. John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) flee to Mexico when she becomes pregnant after the death of their first child. They are captured by border police and sent to the Fortress, a subterranean high-security prison owned by the Men-Tel corporation and operated by "Zed-10", an omnipotent computer system, and a sadistic, genetically "enhanced" warden (Kurtwood Smith) who has nefarious plans involving Brennick's wife and unborn child. Along with his cellmates (including Jeffrey Combs, a favourite of director Stuart Gordon), Brennick plots a breakout and Fortress shifts into auto-pilot action mode.

After making his reputation with such audacious horror films as From Beyond and Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon graduated to a bigger budget with Fortress but his penchant for exploitation remains deliriously intact. While borrowing elements from a variety of better sci-fi movies, Fortress indulges every prison-flick cliché, but does it with such enjoyable B-movie vigour that it qualifies as a bona-fide guilty pleasure (indeed, it deserves to be ranked with James Cameron's original Terminator in terms of its budgetary ingenuity). Featuring such giddy (and gory) devices as "intestinators" (deadly obedience devices implanted in prisoners' bodies) and a torturous "Mind Wipe Chamber", this is really just a drive-in action movie with lofty ambitions and the schlocky script hasn't a prayer of rising above the level of juvenile popcorn fodder. But there's no denying the energy and enthusiasm that Gordon brings to the film, which understandably became a global box-office hit and spawned a 1999 sequel starring Lambert and Pam Grier. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Political terrorists, in a desperate bid to focus the world's attention on their fight for freedom, kidnap an American Ambassador.